Blog of Leonid Mamchenkov

I’ve had PrimeHome for quite some time now. So I don’t know of this feature was there before or if it is one of the recent additions, but it’s pretty cool. Apparently, you can subscribe to additional TV channel packages with just a remote control. No need to call or drive to any of those PrimeTel shops, no need to fill any forms, and, most importantly, no need for any waiting.

Here is how it works. Go to the menu and select the channel that you don’t have but would like to. You’ll see a static PrimeHome screen, with a line at the top saying something like “Press red button to subscribe”. Press the red button on your remote control now. You’ll be asked to enter your PIN and once you do, your STB will reboot and you’ll have the channel enabled. You’re done.

A few things to keep in mind:

• You can easily subscribe with remote control, but not unsubscribe. To unsubscribe you’ll need to visit their shop and fill the form. Maybe you can do it over the phone too - I’m not sure, but it’s for sure not as easy as subscribing.
• When you subscribe with remote control, you don’t subscribe to a single channel, but a package of channels to which it belongs. Check the list of channels and prices for each package at PrimeHome web site before subscribing.
• When you subscribe with remote control, you will be shown a warning that the minimum period for your subscription is two month. I don’t know if the same policy applies when you subscribe through phone or from inside of their office, but it’s worth knowing. If you get yourself an expensive package, you’ll have to pay for at least two month of using it.

That’s about it.

No, no, you aren’t getting screwed.  Quite on the contrary!  I got an SMS from PrimeTel today with their special offer.  Here is the text of the message:

Free 19″ LCD TV.  Get 2 of your friends to become PrimeTel subscribers and the 19″ LCD TV is yours.  Call 133. Learn more www.primehome.com/offers

I know that you know that I’m biased towards PrimeTel, being an ex-employee and having a friends over there.  But I still have to say that this is a pretty neat offer.  I saw that 19″ LCD TV (remember that LCD means flat), and I wish I had any friends who aren’t PrimeTel subscribers… I have a much bigger CRT TV, and would swap it any day for a smaller LCD, that I could use as a monitor for my laptop too.

Too bad I’m out of non-PrimeTel friends right now, but you.. you got get the TV!

A quote from Kim Andrew Elliot’s post (sourced stats from Famagusta Gazette Online Edition):

Expats in Cyprus prefer their news without analysis. Online survey indicates EuroNews is most popular among expats in Cyprus.

Agreed.

One other advantage of EuroNews that wasn’t mentioned is the total absence of the “talking head”.  It’s funny sometimes to see how each of the news channels tries to solve the problem of the news reader, who doesn’t have much to do while reading the news.  The poor news readers are bounced around the studio, separated into corners or grouped around one table, sitting or standing or sitting again, with empty hands or a piece of paper and a pencil or a laptop computer which is probably switched off because nobody ever looks at it, etc…

EuroNews solved the puzzle years ago.  They don’t show the news reader at all.  Brilliant!  It’s TV for crowing out loud.  It’s about moving pictures.  Show me the footage from the location.  Show me a graphs and scans.  Show me a marquee line or a visual effect if you can’t think of anything else.   But don’t show me the talking head!

Although I try to limit my television to as little as I can, I have to say that I enjoy the “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” series. Not that I a big fan of detective genre or occasional lesson in human anatomy, but somehow it all comes together. It’s a slow going story with episodes being separated enough so that I can watch them each on its own, but with enough connection to build the characters. It has a little bit of everything - life, humor, action, crime, nice stories, pretty good acting; and the proportions work for me.

(image source: IMDB)

There are a few other TV series on roughly the same subject going on at roughly the same time, but nothing comes even close. They seem to either focus on supermodel cops, or deepest details of decomposed organic materials, or on vague logic connecting scenes together. None of these appeals to me after a long day at work.

Browsing through IMDB, I get the feeling that I’m not the only one enjoying the series. For better or worse, they’ve made through eight (8!) seasons and still going. Also the user rating seems rather high - 8.6 out of 10. Nice.

After hacking WordPress for a full week straight, it was nice to see other people hacking other things… These music videos were quite entertaining:

• Stringfever - History of music
• Stringfever - Bolero
• Fragment of the Russian television game KVN - similar to the Bolero.

All three found in this post and comments.